Since the evidence of genuine salvation is the presence of the Holy Spirit within the individual, how can this be verified? How can we be reasonably certain about ourselves, as well as others, without being guilty of judging? To answer this, let's take our own case first-there are several "tests" that we can take to determine His presence within us: (all Scripture quotes from Parallel Bible, KJV/Amplified Bible Commentary).

1. Romans 8:16 tells us: "The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with
our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God." First and foremost,
we have the unshakable testimony from within us! The indwelling Holy Spirit
of God constantly reassures us that we belong to Jesus Christ.

2. The entire book of First John was written as a "test" for determining
the reality of salvation. Verse three of Chapter one tells us: "What we have
seen and [ourselves] heard we are also telling you, so that you too may realize
and enjoy fellowship as partners and
partakers with us. And [this] fellowship that we have (which is a distinguishing
mark of Christians) is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, the
Messiah." The fellowship enjoyed by genuine
Christians is proof positive of salvation.
Those who claim Christ, but yet rarely attend church to worship God and associate
with other believers, are possibly fooling themselves! A backslidden Christian
can stay out of church and away from other believers, but I can guarantee
you from first-hand experience that there will never be a time when you will
be comfortable with it! On the other side
of the coin, verse 8 teaches us that if we deny the existence of sin within
us, the Truth is not in us. Verse 3 of Chapter two teaches us that we are
genuine and "growing in grace and knowledge of Christ", if we keep His commandments.
Verse 10 teaches us that we are of Christ if we love the brethren. Again,
those who habitually absent themselves from God's house and do not make it
clear that they love being around God's children, are very likely to be tares
and not wheat. Verse 15 teaches us that if anyone loves the world, the love
of the Father is not in him. "Worldly Christians" is almost a contradiction
in terms and those who claim Christ, but yet cling to the value system of
this world-are suspect.

3. 1 John 5:13 informs us that the entire Book of 1 John was written so that
we can know that we possess eternal life
in Christ. Do you know for absolute certainty that, if you were to die tonight,
you would go to Heaven?

4. The Word of God teaches that the Bible is incomprehensible to the "natural
man"-the unsaved individual. It is a spiritual
book and the unsaved person is not only spiritually blind, but
1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us that he "is incapable"
of knowing that which is spiritually discerned. Do you understand the Bible?
Does it make sense to you and speak to your heart?
Does it convict you of your sin and teach you the right way?

5. The Bible is very clear that an unregenerate individual will not
seek God (Rom.3:11). Are you painfully aware of your sinful nature and cry
out to God from your heart for forgiveness when you sin? If so, this is one
of the signs of having been born again.

Is your soul, your conscience, sorely vexed when you see sin in the culture
around you? When you see blatant sin in public, or on TV, or in Entertainment,
or anywhere else you encounter it, do you feel a severe vexation in your spirit?
The Bible says of Lot, who was foolish enough to live and do business in Sodom:
"(God) delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed
his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds)" [2 Peter 2:7-8]

If your heart is "vexed" by the terrible sin in our daily culture, that
is a good sign you are saved. If your spirit is not vexed by this sin, that
is a good sign you are not saved.

6. The Bible says that an unregenerate individual is a slave of Satan
and incapable of doing anything about it (Eph.2:2). Have you been able to
turn your back upon this world and its sinful ways? Are all of your close
friends Christians? If you have been born again, your unsaved friends will
drop you like a bad habit! (Just as an illustration, spray a small amount
of "WD-40" lubricant on a surface wet with water and watch how fast the water
retreats! A genuine dose of salvation is like the WD-40 where reprobate buddies
are concerned.)

7. Do you love--really love--Christians and would rather be with them
than anyone else? Can you meet a total stranger, find out that they are a
believer, and then have instant fellowship with them? Is there "something"
in your heart that draws you to them and establishes a closeness which cannot
be explained any other way? [We alluded to this feature in Paragraph 2, above]

8. Do you actually enjoy giving to the Lord's work? Do you give generously
of your time, talent, and treasury?

9. Do you sin less now than you did prior to receiving Christ?

10. Have other people seen the "fruit of the Spirit" at work in your life?
That is, can they see genuine love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc., (Gal.5:22),
being wrought in and through you by God's Holy Spirit? Do they sense that
you are a different person from the one you used to be?

11. Have you experienced persecution because of your faith in Christ? (Former
friends who back away because of your testimony for Christ, are a subtle form
of persecution).

12. Are you eagerly expecting and anticipating the any-moment return of Jesus
Christ for His Church?

If you can truthfully answer "yes" to these questions, you are a child of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within you! If you cannot truthfully answer "yes" to these questions, then you are probably not saved and you need to go to the bottom of this page to the Salvation message and go through the steps in honesty and sincereness of heart so you can be saved!

"You must be born again"

The Bible is very clear
on the necessity of a person being "Born Again" if they
are to receive eternal life. Jesus coined this term, in John 3:3-7,
when he told Nicodemus, "You must be born again"
to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Since this necessity is so
critical, Satan has attacked it with all his might for two thousand
years, causing most "Christian" churches to stop teaching
this doctrine, even though no one can be saved without undergoing
this wondrous spiritual conversion. However, Satan's most effective
weapon against being Born Again has been, and still is, confusion.

Fortunately, Jesus
lovingly made this transformation process very simple, so simple
that even those who are retarded or not educated can understand.
There are several steps to becoming Born Again, listed below:

1.
Understand that ALL
men ever born are sinners. Romans 3:23, says,
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
This message that all men are sinners is amply repeated
through Scripture. This means you are a sinner in the eyes
of an angry God, Who must punish all sin. Do you believe you are
a sinner?

2. Since man is an imperfect sinner,
and God is a perfect God, no man can save himself. Jesus made
this fact very plain in Matthew 5:48, when He said, "Be ye,
therefore, perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect."!!!
If we
all have to be perfect in God's eyes, how can there be anyone in Heaven,
especially since the Bible declares, repeatedly, that ALL people
are sinners? Obviously,
no one is going to get to Heaven this way, by trying to be 'good
enough' to merit Heaven. Since the Bible says there are going
to be untold millions of people in Heaven, there must be some
other way to get there, other than by trying to be 'good enough'.

You must
also be very sorry for your sins, and want to have them forgiven. This is known
as Repentance. The word Repent means to both be very sorry for your sins, and to
want to not sin anymore. Repentance means the desire to turn your life around
180 degrees. This does not mean you will never sin again, but it does mean that
sin will become the exception in your life, not the rule.

3. When the
sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, shed His precious blood on the cross at
Calvary, He died for the sins of His people in their place as a sacrificial substitute. And in doing so, He
suffered the wrath of God the Father upon their sin. He paid the
penalty for that sin in His own body and purchased their eternal redemption. This
enables Him to give as a free gift His own holiness and righteousness to those
who believe in Him and trust Him for salvation. making them
absolutely perfect in God. s sight! Romans 6:23 says, "For the
wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord." None of us deserve to be saved; in His love and mercy God extends
grace to those who will believe. Grace is defined as "undeserved favor" and
perhaps this little acrostic will help you to remember its meaning: G
od. s Riches At Christ.
s Expense. [The true meaning of GRACE]

4. In Ephesians 2:8-9, the
Apostle Paul reiterates this teaching that eternal life with God is a
free gift. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should
boast." No man can stand before God in eternity, and boast that they 'earned'
their way to Heaven. All people in Heaven will be there only because of Jesus'
FREE
Gift,
which He obtained from God because of His substitutionary death
sacrifice on the Cross. Rather than punishing each person's individual
sins, God heaped all those sins on Jesus on the Cross Isaiah 53:2-12]

Now, you are probably thinking,
'How can I obtain this free gift of eternal life'? Again, the Bible is not
silent. In Acts 16:25-33, the jailer anxiously asked Paul, "What must I do to be
saved"? Paul answered "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved
..." verse 31". You must BELIEVE on Jesus Christ as your personal Lord
and Savior. To truly believe, you must place your complete faith and trust in
Christ and rely upon Him as your only
hope of salvation and eternal life. This is a matter of the heart
and you cannot hope to deceive God by putting on an act because He knows everything
about you. Many people mistakenly think that by merely believing the facts
concerning Jesus Christ. s death, burial, and resurrection, they will be
automatically be given the gift of eternal life. But such is not the case.
Preachers call that a "head knowledge and not a heart knowledge." Salvation is
freely given, but only to those who are genuine believers.

5. In John 1:1, 14, we see that
Jesus Christ is God, equal with God, present with God from
before the beginning of time, and the actual Creator of the
Universe. He is 100% God and 100% human at the same time, which
is why He used both titles during His ministry, Son of God and
Son of Man. To become Born Again, you must believe this doctrine about
Jesus Christ.

Verse 14 is most important, the
teaching that Jesus God became man. This teaching becomes a point of
separation between the followers of Christ and Antichrist. In 1 John
4:1-3, we see that anyone who denies that Jesus has come in the
flesh is the spirit of antichrist. That is just what the Gnostics
of that day were saying, i.e., that Jesus the human was not
God Messiah come in the flesh; rather, the 'Christ Consciousness' the
'Messiah' Consciousness, came on Jesus at His baptism and left
Him on the Cross; they believe Jesus was not God and Man. The
New Age Movement and Freemasonry have resurrected this blasphemy with
a vengeance.

6. Isaiah
53:6 foretells exactly what Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross; "the Lord [God
the Father] has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Praise God!! Only the
Wisdom, Grace, and Power of God Almighty could conceive of such a gracious Plan
of Salvation!! God's Nature is such that sin must be punished.
Period! But, God set up a Plan whereby an innocent
substitute was to be punished instead of the guilty person. In
the Old Testament, God allowed the lamb to be the substitute sacrifice for sin;
Jesus then became the ultimate substitute sacrifice, for all the sins of the
world.
His was the
Perfect sacrifice, that never needs to be repeated, and that saves
all people forever more.

You must believe in, and understand,
this principle of Substitute Punishment, before you can become
Born Again. And, you must believe that Jesus Christ became the
Perfect Substitute Punishment for YOU, before you can become Born
Again.

Now that you understand these
Truths, and believe them for your life, you now need to understand
how you can obtain this FREE Gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
After all, if I were to attempt to give you a FREE gift, that
gift would not become yours if you were to refuse to reach out
and take that gift from my hand. So it is here. You must reach
out and take this FREE Gift of Eternal Life from the hand of Jesus
Christ. How is this done?

Through
Saving Faith .

Notice I
said Saving Faith . There are types of
faith that will not get you saved. You may have 'head knowledge' faith
that merely intellectually assents to the facts of Jesus Christ's
person, but that is not Saving Faith. You may be in a 'church'
or a cult that teaches many truths about Jesus Christ, but who
teach that you must do many things to earn your way to Heaven.
This is not Saving Faith.

Saving Faith is trusting in
Jesus Christ, and Him alone, for your Salvation.

If you
think you need to do anything for Salvation except trust in Jesus work on the
cross, you are guilty of violating Ephesians 2:8-9 and Isaiah 53:6b.
Most cults
and false Christian religions err at this point; they add things
that are "necessary" for Salvation, or they offer a
counterfeit way to Heaven, i.e., Salvation by Baptism.

Do you want this Gift
of Eternal Life that Jesus left Heaven and died on a cross to
give you? If your answer is, 'Yes', you can immediately have Eternal
Life.

Let me
clarify exactly what this involves. First, you are going to transfer your trust,
your hope of eternal life from what you have been doing to what Jesus Christ has
done for you on the cross. Jesus will take your sin and transfer TO YOU His
right standing with God the Father,
what we call His righteousness
. This means that though we have failed repeatedly to keep God's
commandments, Christ perfectly obeyed all the laws of God. He lived the perfect life, so He
could be the perfect, innocent substitutionary sacrifice that God would accept
for your sins, and the sin of the entire world, for all who will
believe.

Are
you willing to repent of your sins right now, and become
a responsible member of God's forever family, following Him and serving Him
as a member of His forever family, following Him and serving Him as
a member of His body, the Church? If your heartfelt answer
is, "Yes", then we can go to Him now in prayer, and we can
tell Him that you want to cease trusting in
anything else for Eternal Salvation, especially in what you can do for yourself.
You can place your trust in Him and Him alone for
salvation. Before we pray this simple prayer, I need to point our
that the Lord Jesus Christ is looking at your heart more than
His is listening to your lips. As He promised, "Ye shall
seek Me, and find Me, when [after] ye shall search for
Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13).

If this is what you mean, then the Lord
will hear your prayer and grant you eternal life, right now, in
the privacy of your home. Let me pray.

"Father, I pray that You would
grant the FREE gift of eternal life. May thy Holy Spirit draw
him or her unto Thyself. Grant him faith to believe Thy wonderful
promises. Grant him or her repentance to turn from his sins. Reveal
unto him Jesus Christ crucified as the perfect substitutionary
sacrifice, today."

Jesus Christ is right with you right
now. You are not talking to anyone now, but to Him. If you really
want to be Born Again, into the Eternal Family of God through
Jesus Christ, pray this prayer, from your heart.

"Lord
Jesus, I want you to come
in and take over my life right now. I am a sinner. I have been
trusting in myself and my own good works, and in other things.
But, now I place my trust in you. I want You as my own personal Savior.
I believe You died for me. I receive You as Lord and Master of
my life. Help me to turn from my sins and follow You. I thank you for
Your offer of the FREE gift of eternal life. I am not worthy of
it, but I thank You for it. Amen."

Now, allow me to pray. "Father, you have heard the prayer
which has been prayed. I ask that in this quiet moment, Thy Holy Spirit will
grant unto him Your absolute assurance of life eternal; grant unto him the
certainty that his sins are forgiven. Grant that he may hear, in the depths of
his soul, Thy voice saying, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee. Go in peace'. Grant, O
Jesus, that he may hear Thy voice saying, 'As far as the east is from the west,
so far have I put thy sins from thee, never to remember them against thee
anymore. [The person] that believeth on Me shall not come into
condemnation
. He that
trusts in Me is passed from death unto life. He that believeth
on Me shall not perish but has everlasting life [paraphrased
from Psalm 103:12; John 3:18; 5:24; 3:16]. In Jesus' Name, I pray.
Amen."

You have just prayed the most important
prayer you have ever prayed in your life. If you were sincere
in this prayer, I want you to see what Jesus says about what you
have just done. In John 6:47, Jesus says, "Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that believeth on Me has everlasting life."
In your prayer, you didn't hear any angel choirs or see any visions;
however, by a simple act of faith, you have placed your trust
for your eternal salvation in Jesus Christ.

Saving Faith is trusting in
Jesus Christ ALONE for your salvation
. If you meant with your heart what you
just said with your lips, you have the promise of Jesus Christ
that He has forgiven your sins, and has adopted you into the kingdom,
and has given you eternal life in Heaven with Him.

If this
sounds so simple you have trouble believing that it could be true, the Bible
assures you that it is most definitely true. Over the centuries, man has
deliberately complicated this simple Plan of Salvation that most people simply
do not know how simple and uncomplicated God has planned Salvation through Jesus
Christ to be!! If you were genuine in your prayer, you now have eternal life,
and are as assured of it as if you were already there!! This is why Jesus said,
that no person can ever take any of His who are Born Again out of the Father's
hand.

How can you
know for sure that you have been born again? Please do not expect any
"earth-shaking" experience, because in the majority of cases it comes about in a
rather peaceful way, a sense of relief and a load lifted. There will be no fireworks or brass
bands playing, just a wonderful calm that is deep down inside. But with the
passing of time, I have found that one of the best indicators of the New Birth
is a genuine understanding of the Word of God. Prior to being Born Again, the
"natural man", as the Bible calls him, (a lost person), cannot understand the
Bible because it is spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Indeed, it is
foolishness to him! So when the Word begins to make sense, to speak to your
heart, and convict you of sin in your life, it is a very good indicator that you
have the Holy Spirit of God residing within you. You see, a Christian obtains a
new spiritual nature by the New Birth, but he does not get rid of the old nature
he was born with. That is why it is so vitally important that we "grow in grace
and knowledge of Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18). We must cooperate with the Holy
Spirit as we walk through this sinful and spiritually defiling world around us.
The Holy Spirit literally takes up residence within us when we are Born Again
and will never leave us nor forsake us.

Another
wonderful evidence of genuine salvation is found in the "fruit of the Spirit"
(Galatians 5:22) that will take place in our daily lives as the Holy Spirit
works within us. His presence will be manifested to the outside world by means
of the love, joy, peace, longsuffering, faith, etc., they see in us! Then, the
Bible tells us in Romans 8:16 that, "The Spirit itself (lit. Himself) beareth
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." In other words, the
Holy Spirit living deep within us tells us that we belong to God.

But, He has done
much more!! In Revelation 3:20, Jesus promised, "Behold, I stand at
the door and knock [He has been knocking at the door of your heart,
and you have just opened that door to let Him in]; if anyone
hears and listens and heeds My voice, and opens the door I WILL come in
to him and will eat with him, and he will eat with
Me." Jesus Christ has just entered INTO YOUR HEART through the work
of the Holy Spirit, to live in your heart for the rest of your
life!! What great news, for now we have the same Holy Spirit power
within us that raised Jesus from the dead [Romans 8:11].
In fact, read Romans 8 to see all the advantages we have because
the Holy Spirit indwells us daily.

Salvation through Jesus shed blood on Calvary gives you
a deep, abiding Personal Relationship with His Holy Spirit while
you live on this Earth!! As you read the Bible, especially the New
Testament, you will come to understand the wonderful depth you
can reach between you and your Creator!! Salvation produces a
relationship that will deeply enrich your life daily!! You will
never have believed, prior to becoming Born Again, what kind of
life you have been missing out on for so long!

Please write back to tell us if you
have decided to become Born Again. We need to give you some practical
advice on how to ensure your continued maturity and productivity
in the Lord. When you e-mail us, please put "Born Again" in the subject field.

We love you in the Lord. Pray for us
in this ministry, in warning people all over the world about the
impending New World Order. Satan has been so strong in attacking
this ministry.